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Came across this pic from 2009. It’s a rare moment where I am not the one doing all the picture taking (if I remember correctly I put the camera in my husband’s hand and said something about someday we will wish I was in a few pictures). When it came on the screen this week I understood what people have been saying about me “looking good”. I usually chalk their words up to kindness and encouragement. Looking at 2009 AB besides being a little grossed out, I see the difference between then and now.This revelation paired with my weigh in this week and I realized I’ve shed 25 pounds since this picture was taken! TWENTY-FIVE!

I CAN do this. Another 25 and I will be smaller than my kids have ever seen me in real life. I can do that by Christmas.

There it is. I’ll say aloud my next weight goal (I don’t know why that is harder than sharing my weight): lose 23 pounds by the end of December. I want to look back on pictures from this summer and be relieved by the new and improved AB.

Going into this month, my boss (pastor) came to me asking if I would be interested in a gym membership. There was an opportunity to get a corporate rate at his gym. They needed 5 and after he and his wife, the worship pastor and his wife, they needed one more. I’m not sure what reaction he was expecting, I think he just asked me out of courtesy, but the look of surprise was unmistakable as I blurted out “YES!” without any hesitation at all.

It’s conveniently located blocks from work (the church) and they have great machines. The locker room is the nicest I’ve seen in a gym with a changing room, so insecure people like me can get dressed. Although, I have been the only one in the locker room every time I have been there so far. What I don’t like is the check-in.

It’s an easy tag on my key ring that I just scan and go on my way. On a computer screen pops up my picture and a lovely “Hello Kris” greeting. Under it though, are the mocking words, “This is your 4th time here.”

Thank You, Thank You very much for reminding me how hard it is to get back in the habit. That I’ve had the membership almost a month and have only made it there 4 times. That 4 times is not enough to see results. I feel like it laughs at me when I check in. Four is better than none though right? The important thing is that I am there. (I have to keep telling myself that!)

The first visit was brutal. Half hour of cardio was not happening, it still isn’t but it’s getting easier. Today I even tried doing some running. I’m sure I looked like a blob, but it was encouraging that I could go faster starting out than I did the last time I started training. Guess I haven’t completely lost all the good effects. Each visit has gotten a little bit easier though. Soon it’ll be the 14th visit, then 40th, then 400th, right?! I’ve just got to get in the habit again.

In the meantime. Enjoy this video. This is so me and I have had every one of these thoughts!

I know it’s not my day to post, but I think we could all use this.

Replacing My Cravings

“Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my king and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” Psalm 5:1-3 (NIV 1984)

I rolled over and looked at the clock. Another day. Beyond all reason and rationality, I slid out of bed and stripped off everything that might weigh even the slightest ounce as I headed to the scale.

I thought, “Maybe today will be the day the scale will be my friend and not reveal my secrets. Maybe somehow overnight the molecular structure of my body shifted and today I will magically weigh less.”

I yanked out my ponytail holder – hey, it’s gotta weigh something – and decided to try again. But the scale didn’t change its mind the second time. It was not my friend this day.

Vowing to do better, eat healthier, and make good choices, I headed to the kitchen only to have my resolve melt like the icing on the cinnamon rolls my daughter just pulled from the oven. Oh, who cares what the scale says when this roll speaks such love and deliciousness.

Two and a half cinnamon rolls later, I decided tomorrow would be a much better day to keep my promises to eat healthier. But tomorrow wasn’t the day. Or the next. Or the next.

I knew I needed to make changes. Because this wasn’t really about the scale or what clothing size I was; it was about this battle that raged in my heart. I thought about, craved, and arranged my life too much around food. So much so, I knew it was something God was challenging me to surrender to His control. Surrender to the point where I’d make changes for the sake of my spiritual health perhaps even more than my physical health.

I had to get honest enough to admit it: I relied on food more than I relied on God. I craved food more than I craved God. Food was my comfort. Food was my reward. Food was my joy. Food was what I turned to in times of stress, sadness, and even in times of happiness.

I knew this battle would be hard. But through it all I determined to make God, rather than food, my focus. Each time I craved something I knew wasn’t part of my healthy eating plan, I used that craving as a prompt to pray. I craved a lot. So, I found myself praying a lot.

Sometimes I wound up on the floor of my closet, praying with tears running down my face. And I gave myself permission to cry, just like the psalmist in Psalm 5:1-3, “Give ears to my word, O LORD, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my king and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”

And that is literally what I did each day. Laid my requests before God and waited in expectation.

Then, one morning, it finally happened. I got up and for the first time in a long while, I felt incredibly empowered. I still did the same crazy routine with the scale, no clothes, no ponytail holder. The numbers hadn’t changed much, but my heart had. One day of victory tasted better than any of that food I’d given up ever could. I had waited in expectation using prayer as my guide and I did it.

I can’t promise you there won’t be any more tears. There will. And I can’t promise the scale magically drops as quickly as you wish it would. It probably won’t. But it will be a start. A really good start.

Dear Lord, You know me so intimately. You know how much I’m struggling right now. Please help me to replace my cravings with a reliance on You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Like this:

You know those inspiring fitness memes? They say things like, “It’s better to be sore than sorry” or quote someone famous (like Buddha or Marilyn Monroe). There is usually a black and white picture of a super fit chick with sweat dripping off her muscles to accompany the uplifting words.

I don’t look like those when I work out.

In a yoga class recently I took a good look at myself in the mirror. It was difficult to accept what I saw. I think I’ve seen myself with some sort of mental filter in my mirrors at home. The mirror at the gym has no filters, real or imagined. It is unforgiving. I did not like what I saw, but I did not let the figure in the mirror get me down:

I was at the gym doing yoga!

I even went without a friend, on my own!

I have grossly cut back on the amount of crap junk food and snacks I was eating!

I have been intentionally adding more fruits & vegetables to my diet!

These changes to my behavior and working on improving my good habits have resulted in this

This is SEVEN POUNDS down from September. I’m trying to make a big deal out of it because I’m not really feeling accomplished. I’m still measuring myself against where I was before I started slipping back into nasty old habits (in case you’re wondering, I have four whole pounds more to lose to get to my lowest since starting this blog). It feels like I wasted so much time by gaining that weight back. I don’t want to waste time again.

Which is why I’m sticking to my anti-treat goals and set some specific exercise goals (2 spin classes, 1 yoga class and at least one additional workout each week).

Not wanting to waste my time losing the same lbs again is good motivation to work hard. Really wanting to get below my lowest weight (since starting scale matters) is an even bigger motivator. The desire to be too small for my smallest pair of jeans, to fit back into a favorite skirt from years gone by, to comfortably spend an afternoon on my feet, to hike/swim/bike at pace with my family, those desires are all reasons I can look into those harsh gym mirrors and see this…

without crying and running from the gym. (This was an emotionally difficult selfie to share. I hope you appreciate my courage!)

Sometimes I wonder what goes through the instructor’s head or the other people’s heads when they see me in a spin class. Those classes are intense. I get pretty beet red and watching all that fat jiggle when I’m giving it my all…it doesn’t look anything like those sexy, inspiring memes. When I start to worry that people are mocking me in my head, I remind myself that I’m not at the gym to be their eye candy (ha!) or flirt (happily married for 18 years) nor does it matter what anyone else interprets from my working out.

I am there for me.

Going to spin class means afterward I don’t seem to crave sweets as much. When yoga class is over my stress has decreased and I can relax more easily. Every day that I workout makes me less anxious stepping on the scale for my weekly weigh in. Every week that I lose weight makes it easier to accept my results, reinforces those healthy habits, and brings me a little closer to seeing the me I expect when I look in the mirror… even the mean & nasty gym mirror.

5 days until Christmas and I’m planning to stick to my goals even during these holidays. (If Santa brings me a pair of spin shoes that clip into the pedals, it would be even more fun to stick to my goals!)

I will say that I have been too busy. That I meant to blog but before I knew it, it was Monday and then Tuesday or Wednesday. Plus it wouldn’t be nice to take someone else’s day to blog. How rude! I meant to post, I really did, but it was so late…..yadda yadda yadda!

Truth is I was too ashamed. I hate my body! I hate my weight! I hate how I look! I hate the scale. I hate my clothes. I hate the mirror! I hate how I feel! I. HATE. THIS!

I have lost all momentum. I have gained back all weight. I’m on more meds. I am back to the beginning. I keep deciding to start again only to find a reason I didn’t. I’m too tired to get up early and work out. I’m too busy during the day. I’ve never liked working out at the end of the day. I’ll eat better tomorrow. I get frustrated when I do workout because I am a slug. I think about what I use to be able to do and get depressed and then guess what? I don’t workout because it’s too depressing.

My big plan of looking amazing for my high school reunion next year is getting to be a distant memory. My idea of being below 200 by the summer is long gone. My desire to be off my meds and CPAP is replaced with more medication. I have avoided this blog because my motivation has not been there. What is there to write? Who wants to hear me say week after week that I did nothing? That my weight is up? That it is easier to sit here and eat ice cream than get up before 5am and sweat it out. It’s easier being fat and lazy. Food taste good. Why deprive myself of the goodness that is bread? Why get all stinky and sweaty and sore. Why get out of this comfy chair to get sore muscles and not be able to move? This is easier.

So why do this? Why write today? Why try again? Because, while this is easier, I hate it! I don’t want to live in sweats. I don’t want to reach for my fat pants. I want to be able to shop for clothes in normal sizes. I don’t want to be embarrassed by how I look. I want to turn my husband’s head. I want to live a long life.

Like this:

This summer has been very un-summery. We took a 3 day family trip to see some friends over Independence Day but other than that I feel like my kids (and I) are missing all the summer fun we should be having. My goal was to use my free time wisely this summer! I wanted to get many workouts in and create opportunities to do active, healthy things with my kids that might also happen to burn a few calories.

Instead, I started working part-time and I’ve been taking more care of my dad… that’s the short, simplified version. You don’t want to hear me whine.

I had a few days when I used my sparkpeople app on my phone to track calories in/calories out. Honestly, I was surprised at how many calories I had consumed when I thought I was eating healthy. It was not the motivator it should have been. Well, it was sort of. I’m trying to snack on raw veggies… or trying to want to snack on them?

I’ve discovered that the best time of day for me to workout and/or get to the gym is while my kids are still sleeping. The problem with that… I have to get myself in bed (not just in my bedroom where I could potentially start/finish/work on 10 or so projects) by 10 o’clock in order to accomplish the early waking. I want to be a morning person, really I do.

So to recap: I want to want to eat more veggies. I want to be a morning person. Life = frustratingly busy.

Why can’t my weight be like my cell phone, keys, or my son’s soccer cleats the morning of a game? Easy to lose, hard to find/gain!

Inspired by AB I started looking back and trying to find when I was this weight. I had to really go back, a long way back, and yet gaining it didn’t even take half the time. A Quarter of the time! What’s up with that?! It drives me a little crazy to see these little reports about how much a celebrity struggled to put on weight for a role. Brownies and cheeseburgers every day, you poor thing. I’m pretty sure if they are complaining about gaining weight, they aren’t doing it right! It is awesome to eat whatever you want. “Would you like mayo and extra cheese with that? Ummm, of course!” “Throw some chili fries in with that!” Have you ever had a slopper? What? No?! It must be a southern Colorado thing. Take an open faced hamburger, throw a heap of fries on top, smother in green chile, and blanket with cheese. “What do you mean that isn’t on the diet? It’s got protein, dairy, a little bit of carbs. Ok a lot o-carbs! Make the chile really hot and your body will sweat the calories out, right?”

Eating healthy is boring and so much work. Why does it have to be so much work? Shouldn’t the math skills we learned in high school and wondered when we would ever use Algebra, be used to fight cancer or something? Not for figuring out if I have 207 calories left to eat today and 1 cookie is x amount of calories, do I get to dunk them in milk while speeding to point B at 56 mph while driving toward me is the Ice Cream truck travelling at a similar rate of speed but leaving 15 minutes later, what color is the number 7?

Can you tell I am having a rough food day? Maybe if celery tasted like vanilla I wouldn’t be frustrated.

I did get moving this past week……………………………once!

Yep, 1 stinking day for a workout. Pathetic I know! Big Sigh! Deep breath! Refocus! All hope is not lost! Once is better than none! This week we just shoot for doubling that. Small steps to get to bigger steps. I am too prone to frustration right now for not getting a workout in every day or eating well daily. Small goals, small accomplishments to build on and get the motivation going again.

Like this:

I know I’ve been a bad blogger lately but that’s only because I have been bad in general.

I haven’t stepped on the scale in a month. I can see my body expanding, too, and I’m not liking how some of my clothes fit lately.

What derailed the Super Motivated ABC? Without too much detail I will just say I am a woman over 40 whose feminine features have started a rebellion. Of course, the doctors always seem to point out that being overweight makes the problem even worse.

Thanks.

I retreated into my shell. Being physically miserable should have been a motivator to try to lose weight, to give myself some relief, but no. I, of course, took the other path. The I’m-already-uncomfortable-and-unhappy-What’s-the-difference path.

Alas, relief to the rebellion is in sight and I’ve started feeling better in the last few weeks. I’ve thought about working out again. I even bought good stuff for green smoothies. I made it to Mandy’s Friday workout last week but only barely and I totally didn’t mean it. I came home and ate a croissant.

Then last night my friend’s ganged up on me.

“Come on! Spin class at 5:45! It will be fun!”

5:45? am?! Are they nuts?

Well, yes they are, but in a good way. So I gave in to peer pressure, set my alarm for 5:20 am (named it “I hate Tami”), and was out the door before my husband even sat up in bed.

Like this:

I have started a post soooooo many times in my head on so many a Sunday and yet, nothing! I have written nothing for a while. Been accountable for nothing for far too long! I know it too. This isn’t a surprise. “Oh my! I had no idea it had been so long since I posted. Wow! How time really flies!”

WHATEVER!!

Out of sight, out of mind is more like it. Don’t have to want to deal with it. Honestly, the fact that no one else is posting has made it easier to ignore. I guess if everyone else jumped off a bridge I would too, eventually. Not blaming any one else for my own choices, it’s just amazing how I can use others as a reason to justify it. Not right at all! Then out of the blue…a post. A post to remind me why we all are doing this. A post from a poor sleep deprived, new momma willing to talk about her weight. And after having a baby! All us mom’s know that’s when you feel the worst about your body!

We started all this to encourage, help, commiserate, cheer, cry, gripe, and push each other until we get to where we want to be with our health. It’s time I started climbing out instead of wallowing in the muddy valley of despair and pity!

I saw this recently from another blog and for a couple days it got me moving and then I stopped looking at it so I wouldn’t feel guilty. How did I allow myself to fall so far again! UGH! I’m in this circular pattern of disgusted with myself must do something about it, good for a day, oh why bother, disgusted again. Must stop the cycle. Hopefully, this is the first step. Having to answer for what I did or didn’t do this week will maybe get that motivation going again.

Here we go……………again.

I don’t know where my weight is exactly except that it has inched up a few pounds. I think I will just start with trying to get moving again, regularly, rather than focus on the scale just yet. So that’s my plan.